Ok, I'm going to play Devils Advocate here folks. Sure we all get a bit annoyed at security being a bit uptight but remember they feel they have obligations to keep us all safe no matter what and they have obligations from their employers that probably don't even really make sense to them, you might think "I'm Aircrew, I go through all the time and have a myriad of ways to sneak stuff through, why even bother with me?", next time they're on your flight they might be thinking "I'm a paying passenger, why can't I just take a measly extra kilo onboard?" and the answer to both of those questions? Because they have a job to do set down to them by their bosses and at the end of the day they want to keep their job, get their pay and pay off their mortgage etc...
On the specific situation, I can fully understand the whole idea of them having to open the bag instead of you, makes sense if you think about it. If there is a dangerous object inside that bag such as a bomb you could easily open the bag and detonate it or if it was a projectile weapon you could open the bag, pull it out and fire it at one of them.
Of course we all know that as operating crew we could very easily just push the stick forward if we wanted to crash the plane, grab the crash axe if we wanted to hijack it or if you're really lucky pull out the gun and just go a little bananas, but that isn't THEIR concern, their concern is to make sure that:
A. Weapons don't make it onboard
B. Contraband doesn't make it onboard
If they are being pricks about it then surely there must be some way to report them, perhaps someone can shed some light on that process instead?
If the laws are retarded (Yes they are!) Then all we could possibly do is mount a campaign to change them but lets be honest it probably won't do jack anyway.